We Are the Ones Who Seem to Travel Through Time: April 2026

Written By Stephen Bands

They call me the believer

Another month, another human tragedy unfolds at the behest of the orange syphilitic nazi moron that currently runs the largest military in the world.

It seems a bit silly, in that context, to focus on music, but art exists always and it mirrors us in ways both known and unknown. Talking about it may be a pleasant distraction, but it also lets us view the world through other lenses. Maybe that’s naive or pollyanna, but I’ll take what solace I can get these days.

The Listen List

An update about what’s out now and what people around the internet are talking about

March

** must-listen

The Rewind

A look back at a favorite from (at least five) years past

I would spend the length of this abstract going through the history of hypnagogic music, but you don’t want to read it and I don’t want to write an entire essay as an introduction to an entire essay. All you need to know is that it is a way to comment on pop music by warping its songwriting cliches into a low-fidelity emulation of pop that is more satirical than honorary. And with that, let us begin.

We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves

John Maus

Hypnagogic Synthpop | 2011

Along with Ariel Pink—who we will mention this one time and never again—John Maus is the face of hypnagogic pop. His synth patches are so overlapping, his vocal reverb so thick that you can’t truly understand what you’re hearing until it’s too late…you’re in it now, and it has you.

Maus’ previous albums included his so-lo-fi-its-basically-unlistenable debut, followed by his much cleaner, much better sophomore effort, I Want to Live. But his songwriting style: the repetition of lyrics to the point of hypnosis, the hyper-looped synths, the addictively simplistic beats; really began to take form on his third release, Love Is Real, especially on the (personal favorite) track, “Rights for Gays,” which, as you can imagine, hears Maus chanting, “rights for gays, oh yeah / right now, rights for gays, oh yeah,” over and over.

And that leads us to our subject today, the album with which John Maus would make any sort of cultural wave, We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves.

The album opens with the blast from the bright, looping, descending synths of “Streetlight,” the perfect, showy, “look at me” song to immediately hook the listener. Maus’ add-libs run through echoes of reverb so much before he utters a single word that every note begins to feel like a trip. Close your eyes and you can feel yourself floating up toward the titular streetlight, and that is Maus’ thesis statement: open your mind to what is possible through sound.

…

You know what? I don’t know how to actually write about this album. I love it, and I wish it was more recognized for its genius, but it is such an incredibly odd little gem of an album that the audience has never and will never really exist for it.

I love, love, love the bass groove and enlightening lyrics of “Quantum Leap,” from which this issue gets its title: “heart to heart, mind to mind / we are the ones who seem to travel through time.” Maybe a bit of Maus’ PhD in Philosophy showing through, commenting on human’s innate and unique ability to mark and measure the passage of time where other organisms only truly live in the present. Whether that makes us better or worse, is for us to decide.

Then there’s the stunningly gorgeous duet of “Hey Moon” with Molly Nilsson, its slow, simplistic root-line loop reminiscent of a child’s lullaby. Comparing love to staring at the moon is a well-worn literary trope, but Maus does it so exquisitely that I sometimes feel tears welling up: “And your pale, round face / Makes me feel at home in any place / I happen to be.” Later, there’s more genius poetry, begging the moon to keep him awake: “Hey moon / If I was to fall / I would fall so deep / Though I doubt I’m gonna / You can wake me up if you wanna / I would hate for you to hang there all alone / The whole night through.”

That this immediately crashes into the hyper-propulsive “Keep Pushing On,” with its 80’s sci-fi movie allusions, both musically and lyrically, is a delicious juxtaposition. As is his combination of Phantom of the Opera-style organs with a super-blunt anti-misogyny message on “Matter of Fact” that, in his classic style, is repeated over and over and over again, both as a stylistic choice, and to really drill the message into your head.

“We Can Breakthrough” uses an insane number of vocal loops and backing tracks to create an almost Gregorian experience, before beginning the maybe one kinda mainstream breakthrough Maus had, “Believer.” The four-on-the-floor beat, the steady bass line, the oversaturated, ultra-reverb synth loop, the nonsensical vocals processed through a wash of degrading echolalia: somehow it got people to go to his shows, at least for a bit.

As I said, there’s not a theme here for me to point you toward. This album will never be for everyone. But when I listen to it, the music feels like some sort of distillation of pure pop into its simplest, most paleolithic human desire for music, that it lights up every dopamine receptor. I dare you to try it.

Now Playing

A quick look at my personal favorite recent release

WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA

Slayyyter

Electropop

I’m currently obsessed with this, so I’ll cut to the quick: this album kicks a ton of butt. It’s everything I want from a modern pop album: the quirkiness of hyperpop, but the beats of EBM. Mix that together with Slayyter’s admitted influences of 2000’s electroclash, 90’s house, French electro, industrial rock, the UK rave scene, and dance-punk, and you have a wild fuckin’ ride.

Taking on the character of her worst possible self, Slayyyter writes and delivers a series of songs that would soundtrack any dingy, grimy, high-school dropout’s kick-ass party, and describes them in minute detail: “I’m cranking up,” she yells out on “OLD TECHNOLOGY,” after politely telling us she’s “doing drugs tonight / Ones that I’m not prescribed.”

That ethos is written out earlier in her rejection of shiny, modern things on “BEAT UP CHANEL$,” while also going full rock star. After boldly yelling out “I want sex, money, bitches, and the stickiest weed,” over a screaming deconstructed club beat, she calmly sings that she “wants something for real.”

“DANCE…” is the perfect opener, itself including over a minute of buildup before exploding into your ears. “GAS STATION” is a gorgeous homage to chiptune music while providing a much needed pace break from the previous onslaught of rave-inducing bangers. And her ode to the late Brittany Murphy in the eponymous finale, particularly as a mirror for what the fame industry can do to beautiful young women, is somehow insanely catchy and overwhelmingly moving.

And that’s only about half the songs, all of which are stellar examples of highly addictive dance-pop with dark edges and infectious production. Ladies and gentlemen, we may have found our first 10/10 of 2026.

P.S. But seriously, also check out that Neurosis album; it rocks super hardcore

P.P.S. And also the Johnny Blue Skies album, Sturgill Simpson does not miss

Up Next

What’s coming out in the next few weeks?

…again, this is cheating a bit since some of these have come out already…

  • Distracted by Thundercat

  • sunn O))) by sunn O)))

  • POMPEI // UTILITY by Earl Sweatshirt and MIKE & SURF GANG

  • Vol.II by Angine de Poitrine

  • Kammerkonzert by Squarepusher

  • Superbloom by Jessie Ware

  • Nine Inch Noize by Nine Inch Nails & Boys Noize

  • Angel in Plain Clothes by Angelo de Augustine

  • Your Favorite Toy by Foo Fighters

  • FENIAN by Kneecap

Well, what releases did I miss? What’s coming out soon that you can’t wait for?

And as always, fuck ICE, release the Epstein files, and happy listening!

Stephen Bands
Next

All My Life, I Thought I’d Change: March 2026